STORY ARCHIVE

Magic Mud

The poisoned waters left over from mining are amongst the most dangerous andintractable environmental problems faced by the world today. One manbelieves he has discovered the answer. It's mud. A deceptively simple mudthat takes cyanide and arsenic in water, and makes them disappear. But willanyone believe him? This is the story of small town geochemist DavidMcConchie's ten-year struggle to find acceptance. It's a story of chancediscovery, government failure and sheer perseverance, and ultimately, anextraordinary test. Can McConchie's magic mud clean up the toxic cyanidespill in Romania?

TRANSCRIPT

Narration: Romania. January 31st, 2000. An environmental disaster of epic proportions. The containment dam of the Bai Mare gold mine has broken, flooding the country's waterways with a toxic cocktail of cyanide and heavy metals. They are persistent poisons. And no one knows how to get rid of them. In desperation, the nation turns to this man, David McConchie. He's a geochemist from Lismore, Australia. And he claims he has the solution.

It's mud. This is magic mud. And it's amazing to think that it started out as an industrial waste and it now can be used to solve many of the world's problems. This is the story of McConchie's magic mud. A ten year struggle to get acceptance for his discovery. And it began when David and his wife, Fiona, were surprised by the actions of a waste product of aluminium refining, known as red mud.

Prof David McConchie: We were floating on the river just near the outfall of the red mud dam and it really, we had other results and it suddenly dawned on us that the water that was going in one end of that red mud pond dam was more contaminated than the water that was coming out at the other end. And in fact that should have been the other way around, but it wasn't. So we did a very detailed study of the geochemistry of the whole process, and in the course of that study, we found out that neutralised red mud, and I don't mean the ordinary caustic red mud, but once we've neutralised it properly it has some remarkable properties.

Narration: It turned out the mud could completely negate acid. But there was a far more exciting finding. The neutralised red mud had an unusual chemical structure. That made it capable of trapping toxic heavy metals, leaving the water clear. The scientists had never seen anything like it.

Fiona McConchie: So we repeated our work again and again and again and we kept that up for ages. But each time the science was the same, the results were the same,

Narration: At that moment it seemed that here was the answer to some of the worlds ills. What couldn't be seen was how hard it would be to get anyone to listen. As is often the case, making the exciting discovery was just the start.

Prof David McConchie: When we first made the discovery we were really excited about it. We published it in conferences and in the geological or scientific literature, and we applied for research grants from the normal authorities, and we were unsuccessful.

Narration: They applied for grant after grant. But no one would fund them. David and Fiona worked on the mud when they could. Their son, Jade came up with a name: Bauxsol. Eight years they spent writing useless grant applications. Finally, McConchie had had enough. He changed his tack.

Fiona McConchie: He said I'm just not going to do this any more, I'm just not going to put in for another grant about this at all, I'm going to seek industry backing. And it so happened that he knew somebody who owned a mine site that had an acid mine drainage problem. And late at night on his way back from Brisbane, he dropped in and saw these people. And we had the full industry backing by 9 o'clock the next morning.

Narration: It was 1999. With this backing, at last they could put their science to a real life test. Their destination: the tailings dam at the exhausted Carrington gold mine - the third biggest environmental hazard in NSW. It was at the point where it was absolutely full to the brim. Just one heavy shower would have sent toxic water cascading over the edge, causing one of the worst environmental disasters this country's every seen. The company that had come to their aid owned the contaminated mine site.

If the mud, now known as Bauxsol could prove itself here, both the mine's and McConchie's problems would be solved. They pumped the Bauxsol out. Fingernails were chewed while they monitored the water. But five weeks later, the pH had gone up, the water was clean. Having cleaned up one gold mine, they figured they were on to a gold mine of their own. In preparation, they'd listed on the Australian stock exchange. But they were in for a shock.

Prof. David McConchie: I mean we really thought that everybody would be really excited by it. And to be fair a lot of people were. But there were also many people who came back with pretty negative criticisms, even to the extent of saying that we didn't do it, or that it wasn't as good as we said it was. In fact doubting what we'd said.

Narration: Their share price plunged. The 'Australian' newspaper ran a series of critical articles. McConchie and the company sued for defamation.

Newspaper clipping: Australian, Margin Call : Your Humble columnist was besieged by complaints yesterday about a piece on aspiring waste treatment player, Virotec. We gave it a good belting and the company came out with announcement debunking what we said.

Fiona McConchie: And he was really personally hurt and professionally hurt. Because he knew that the science was sound.

Prof. David McConchie: That didn't make it any less hurtful, particularly when you have to go and explain to the Head of the Department that you really were telling the truth.

Narration: They toughed it out. They went back, and cleaned up more of the site. Eventually the murmurs quietened. But it wasn't enough. They still weren't getting through to the key players. The international mining companies weren't interested in their mud. Their problem was it sounded too simple to be true, Not to mention it was not coming from one of the high tech labs in North America or Europe - it came from a small regional lab in Lismore. There had to be a way to make the world pay attention. And they found it. Romania.

Prof. David McConchie: Well, if you're going to make a splash, why not go for the worst toxic site in the world?

Narration: September 2001. They arrive at the site of the infamous toxic spill.

Prof David McConchie: There was this absolutely foul yellow orange coloured water flowing down open drains in the suburbs of Baia Mare. It was as acid as lemon juice and loaded up with trace metals.

Narration: This would literally be their acid test.

Bauxsol is poured into three million litres of acid mine drainage water. They wait. 48 hours later, the ultimate test. McConchie drinks the water.

Prof. David McConchie: Oh, drinking the water is certainly a showman thing. It's a bit of an act.

Narration: His showmanship paid off. Soon after, they successfully listed on the London Stock Exchange.

It had taken ten years of struggle, but McConchie had finally made the breakthrough few Australian scientists achieve. He'd brought his discovery from the field to the world stage.